Recruitment Rises 12.5% Despite Ongoing Challenges

The Defense Department’s armed services branches recruited 12.5% more individuals in 2024 than in the year prior in spite of a challenging and indifferent recruiting market.

Katie Helland employment Director of Military Accessions Policy Katie Helland talks to members of the media during a panel on financial year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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Credit: Flying Force Tech. Sgt. Jackie Sanders, DOD.
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While speaking at a multiservice panel on 2025 hiring concerns at the Pentagon previously today, Director of Military Accession Policy Katie Helland said that the services increased the variety of recruits from 200,000 in FY 2023 to 225,000 in FY 2024, which ended September 30.

Additionally, she said, the services had a 35% increase in written agreements, and the active elements’ delayed entry program began FY 2025 with a 10% bigger pool.

” [The Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the services will continue to construct off the momentum that we’ve gotten in 2024,” Helland stated.

” Nevertheless,” she continued, „we require to stay meticulously positive about the future recruiting operations as we continue to hire in a market that has low youth tendency to serve, restricted familiarity with military opportunities, a competitive labor market and a declining eligibility among young adults.”

Helland elaborated on those obstacles by describing that, for the very first time because the metric has actually been tracked, the majority of young individuals have actually never ever thought about the choice of serving in the armed force.

The factors behind that are multifold, Helland said. Young Americans have less ties to buddies or family members who have actually served in the armed force. There is a decreasing presence of veterans in our society. Approximately 77% of individuals in between the ages of 17 and employment 24 need some type of waiver to serve due to any number of disqualifications.

To counter such challenges, Helland stated the military has executed a medical pilot program that enables recruits to sign up with the military without a waiver for numerous health conditions – offered they fulfill specific requirements. Additionally, there are service member preparation courses that prepare employees to meet the exhausting requirements of military service. Moreover, DOD is seeking to reconnect with youth and their influencers by revealing them the value of serving.

” The next generation of Americans to serve must know that there has actually never been a better time for them to pick military service,” Helland said.

Panel Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder assists in a panel on fiscal year 2025 recruiting objectives at the Pentagon, Oct. 30, 2024.
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” Youth today seek a larger function in their lives and desire jobs where they have higher participation in decision-making and can create a direct concrete impact,” she continued. „Military service offers all of this.”

Explaining that U.S. military service provides more than 250 professions which it represents among the most extremely informed companies throughout the world and across all pay grades, Helland said the Defense Department is working hard to counter the story that joining the armed force is an alternative to attending college or „an option of last option.”

” We are working to reframe this narrative so that Americans comprehend that military service is a path to greater education and profession opportunities while protecting democracy and the flexibilities we hold dear,” Helland said.

She included that DOD is reframing this narrative. For instance, the department’s Joint Advertising Marketing research and Studies program will quickly launch a campaign to develop familiarity with the American public about the worth of military service. Plans are also proceeding to have adult influencers promote for military service.